


The date night.

by spacepuck



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Fluff, Gen, M/M, POV Dirk, in which dirk is small and dave is his guardian who leaves him home alone to go on a date, the man has no idea how to raise kids lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11381586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepuck/pseuds/spacepuck
Summary: In which Dirk, eight year old extraordinaire, has to endure the annoying, mushy, and just plain weird aspects of his older brother going on a date.





	The date night.

**Author's Note:**

> happy johndave week! this was inspired by [this post](http://harveychan.tumblr.com/post/151547652434) by harvey!

“Oh, shit, it’s almost seven—”

“Jesus fuck, where did my shoe go—”

“Dirk, please don’t tell me you moved the keys _again_ —”

This has been going on for the past fifteen minutes: your older brother (or, when you’re feeling spiteful, your _guardian_ ) walking around the apartment in a way that you only see the old women of the building walk (you know, with those ugly bright leg warmers bunched around their ankles), mumbling loudly to himself while never really being out of earshot, checking his phone every five seconds and starting to sweat, all because of this stupid date. 

A date that he hasn’t really shut up about in a week, even though you’ve told him about every chance you get that you don’t really _care_ , and if he could _please_ shut up for more than a few minutes so you could watch your shows and play your games in peace, _thanks bro_ , that would be great. But he likes pretending to have a short attention span around you, so he gets back to talking about—Jack? Joe? James? some name like that—almost as soon as you tell him to stop. You still haven’t learned the exact art of total disregard yet. Dave says you’ll have to wait until you turn at least twelve to master it. 

It’s about ten to seven P.M. You can tell because your brother keeps saying the time every two minutes from different corners of the apartment. Who needs a clock when you have an older brother running late for a date? (No one, apparently.)

He finally seems to settle down just in front of the door. You look over the couch to watch him pat down his pockets for his keys and wallet, check his phone just one more time, before he looks at you and beckons you over.

“Alright, c’mere. Ground rules before I go.”

You sigh (you try to keep it internal, but you haven’t really mastered that yet, either) and slink off the couch to stand in front of him. He looks around, maybe trying to see if he’s forgotten anything, then down at you.

“Okay, there’s a bunch of snacks and leftover pizza in the fridge if you’re feeling up to anything. You can rent a movie if you want, but just remember: I’m the one that gets the bill for that shit, so keep it, I dunno, PG-13. Uh, what else… Oh, no scary games or movies after dark, alright? Don’t need you having nightmares again because you thought watching _The Ring_ by yourself would be a swell idea.” 

You roll your eyes pretty heavily at that. You do not—repeat, do _not_ get nightmares. Especially not from lame movies with even lamer jumpscares.

(…Not any that are that bad, anyway.)

He clasps his hands on your shoulders, getting a little closer to your height. 

“I promise I’ll be home before nine, okay?”

You shrug. “Okay.”

“If you need anything, just call, I’ll come home—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m serious, if you need me back—”

You fight the urge to tilt your head back and go full-on melodramatic sigh, so a small sigh comes out of you instead. Maybe a small scowl to go along with it forms on your face.

“Dude, just _go_.”

He lets go of your shoulders, opting to give your hair a little ruffle before stepping towards the door. As he exits, he turns to look at you again, pointing the house key at you.

“No answering the door from strangers.”

“Oh, my god.”

You start to retreat to the living room couch when you hear him lock the door. He then unlocks it just as quickly and pokes his head in, brows furrowed a little.

“Did you do your homework?”

“Bro, aren’t you late?

You hear him curse under his breath before closing and locking the door again. This time you hear his footsteps retreat down the hall and go quiet. 

Finally. Some peace and quiet for the next two hours. Peace, quiet, and bad PS2 games. 

\--

Sometime around 8:30, your phone buzzes beside you. And it buzzes again. And again. And that’s how you know Dave is texting you. 

Begrudgingly, you pause your show to look at the series of texts. Though he’s not around to see, you still subdue a yawn. 

RECEIVED: dirk

RECEIVED: hey man just checking up on you

RECEIVED: at least tell me you havent burned the place to the ground 

SENT: How’s your date going?

RECEIVED: pretty sweet

RECEIVED: like if all the chocolate in the world were melted in one big pot and if you decided to jump in and couldnt swim it wouldnt punish you

RECEIVED: no it would see your needs and turn you into a sickass chocolate-breathing sea creature 

RECEIVED: chocolate breathing chocolate creature??

RECEIVED: man who even knows that would be wild though

SENT: Oh my god.

SENT: Gross.

RECEIVED: johns pretty sweet is what im sayin

SENT: I get it.

RECEIVED: alright well hes back so 

RECEIVED: call if you need anything

SENT: Okay.

You toss your phone to the side, sinking into the couch cushions. In all honestly, you guess it’s okay that your brother’s getting all mushy and weird over this guy. It hasn’t happened in a long time. 

But still, you don’t want to hear mushy and weird. Especially not from him. So you feel conflicted over it, and—

_bzzt-bzt. bzzt-bzt. bzzt-bzt._

You glance at your phone, reaching up under your shades to rub at an eye, and notice the telltale red and green circles. Looking closer, you realize Dave is calling you, and though you hesitate, you answer.

“Hey, bro. Did your thumbs fall off?” you ask. Considering he knows you prefer texting him rather than talking over the phone, you figure he has very few excuses. 

But, he doesn’t respond right away, or really at all. You hear his voice, but it’s a little distant, overlapping someone else’s laugh. 

_“Yeah, no, I think McConaughey was kind of shitty in_ Failure to Launch. _Granted, it’s just not a good movie period—”_

 _“Oh, come on, it’s not_ that _bad.”_

 _“I bet you liked_ Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, _too.”_

_“Haha, no, that one was totally lame! Didn’t even get extra points for having ghosts in it, which just gave it more lameness points.”_

_“You like ghost movies?”_

_“Well, only the really good ones…”_

You’ve caught on by this point that this is an accidental call, and that you should probably hang up to keep yourself sane, but instead you just sit and listen with your phone in hand. They talk about nothing in particular, flitting from one topic to the next between laughs. You’re not really sure what the point is, or why your brother was so nervous. Somehow, his date—John, you remember—can stand the fact that he hardly shuts up.

You continue to listen for a little longer, even getting up to get some orange soda and a snack to at least _try_ and enjoy the rest of your night, and start to get a little cozier on the couch. As the time crawls closer to 9, you find it harder to hold back your yawns. 

_“Wait, what time is it?”_

_“Uhh, let’s see…about 8:50?”_

_“Oh, shit, it’s almost 9.”_

_“Yeah—is something wrong?”_

_“I gotta get home to my little bro.”_

_“Little bro?”_

_“Yeah, he’s eight.”_

_“Oh, gotcha—babysitter on a tight schedule, or?”_

_“Uh…”_

_“Wait, did you leave him home_ alone? _”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Dude, what the fuck—”_

You hear the distinct sound of Dave fumbling to pick up his phone, and you quickly end the call. You figure he wouldn’t like it much knowing that you were listening in on his date, even if you weren’t very interested in it to begin with.

With the last ten minutes of your night alone to spare, you decide to resume your show, even if you won’t finish it by the time Dave comes home. Not that it matters—you’ve seen this episode a hundred times. You reach up under your shades to rub your eyes again, and you yawn. 

Even though you think 9pm is totally a baby hour to fall asleep, you decide to rest your eyes until Dave comes back. Just for a couple of minutes…

…

…

“Wow, it must have sucked having to move all of your stuff up to this floor.”

“Nah, it wasn’t too bad. I’m ripped, if you can’t tell.”

“Oh, _obviously…_ ” 

You find yourself jolting awake when the lock in the door turns, and, blearily, you open your eyes. In the few minutes it took for Dave to come home, you had slumped against the arm of the couch, cheek pressed awkwardly against your arm, glasses pressed painfully against your face. You don’t move right away—are you actually awake?—and you hear Dave hush someone. 

“Oh man, I think he passed out.”

“I mean, he is _eight_ , Dave.” 

Oh, Jesus, did he actually bring his date back home? 

Something compels you to keep your eyes shut, that weird thing you know all kids do when they don’t want to deal with their parents, and you hear one of them come near you. When they press a hand softly to your hair, you figure it’s Dave. 

“Dirk?” he says, soft to keep from startling you. And you suppose the ruse is up when you shift your neck and shoulder, as he says your name again a little louder. 

“Hey, lil’ bro, I’m home. And, uh, I brought someone for you to meet…” 

His hand leaves your hair, and you open your eyes, sitting up slowly. You readjust your shades before looking over the back of the couch to see Dave and…John. 

Dave, for one, looks entirely embarrassed to have come back with him. You’re not really sure why, since it’s not like this is the first time he’s brought a date back home, but he keeps looking over at John as if expecting that the other’s going to yell at him. 

But he doesn’t. Actually, all John does is smile at you, giving a short wave. 

“Hi Dirk, my name’s John!”

You nod a little bit. Something tells you your hair’s messed up, so you reach up to comb your fingers through it. 

“Hi.” 

“Uh, so John and I came back to watch some movies,” Dave starts, “and, y’know, keep you company. But if you’re feelin’ tired, you can get ready for bed if you want.” 

You shrug—before reaching up to hide a yawn behind your hand. With a small, breathy laugh, Dave reaches over to ruffle your hair lightly. You opt to glare at him from behind your shades for doing it in front of company, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“Well, at least go brush your teeth in case you fall asleep again, alright man? And if you feel like you can’t sleep, you can come out and join us.”

“Yeah—we’re going to watch some space movies. Nothing scary, though!” 

Dave looks at John, grinning slightly.

“Apparently, John here has some pretty alright movie tastes. And he speaks the truth—no cheap jumpscares.”

With another quiet nod, you climb off the couch, padding off to the bathroom to brush your teeth (because, you admit, sometimes your brother is right about things). While you stand there, looking at yourself in the mirror and looking at the red impression on your cheek, you wonder if you should give them some more time alone and just go to bed. 

On the other hand, you kind of want to see what these space movies are, even if they are total trash. 

After some cleaning up, you go back to your room, where you overhear the two speaking to one another. 

“He seems like a good kid, but I kind of don’t believe he’s your brother.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

John snickers a little. 

“He’s pretty quiet! Whereas you’re, y’know, a total blabbermouth.” 

“Hey, I can be quiet. Besides, the dude just met you—give it time, he’ll talk your ear off soon enough.” 

After some deliberating (read: standing listlessly in the middle of your room tugging a pajama shirt over your head), you try crawling into bed. And though you do relax somewhat in the dark, with the distant movie noises giving you white noise to listen to, you can’t really fall asleep just yet. Even though you definitely passed out in the span of a few minutes just before, something keeps you awake now.

And no, you would rather not focus your eyes on the dark spots of your room, or close your eyes pretending you’re asleep. But you swore off sleeping with the lights on when you were much smaller, and you weren’t about to turn on the lamp to ward off the shadows. Which leaves you just lying there, feeling just a little…paranoid, maybe.

…Maybe it’s just one of those nights where the dark isn’t really a comfort, or a friend.

Quietly, you crawl out of bed and exit your room, padding down the hallway to walk into the living room where Dave and John sit watching the movie. You stop yourself where the hallway ends, however, to watch them. Dave with his arm over John’s shoulder, turning his head to murmur something in his ear. John covering his mouth to muffle a laugh—both of them figuring you’ve gone to bed, probably—and turning his head to murmur a response. 

It’s a little weird to see your brother like this again. Not bad. Just weird. In a good way, you think. He seems happy. 

And you wish you could hear and see the movie from your spot, but you can’t, but you also don’t want to get in the way—

When John turns his head to murmur something to Dave again, you see his eyes dart over to you, standing silent in the hall. His eyebrows perk up, and he sits a little straighter under Dave’s arm.

“Dirk—are you okay?” he asks. This causes Dave to turn his head to look at you. 

“Can’t sleep, bud?” he asks. When you shake your head, he beckons you over with a hand. “Well, c’mere.” 

When you walk over, he moves over so you and John are on either side of him. He brushes a stray hair from your forehead before placing his arm behind you on the couch’s back. 

“You’ll like this movie, little bro,” he says. “John picked a good one.”

You look briefly over at John, who has made himself comfortable against Dave’s side again, and nod a little. 

“Okay,” you say.

And you, too, lean against your older brother, feeling a little more at peace away from the dark of your room. You feel peace, and you feel a little happy that John makes Dave act mushy and weird. 

Even if you find it gross sometimes.


End file.
